262. Official-Informal Letter From the Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs (Easum) to the Ambassador to Zaire (Vance), Washington, March 6,
197412

At Deputy Secretary Rush's
direction, AF has consulted with EUR about the possible impact of a sale of
M-16s to Zaire on the current Azores lease negotiations, in which the
U.S. hopes to be able to resist certain Portuguese arms requests. In our
discussions with EUR, we have raised the
points made in paragrah one of Kinshasa 1948. Despite these
considerations, EUR has concluded that a
sale to Zaire now could seriously complicate the negotiations. Once
talks have reached the stage where we are able to offer the Portuguese
an assistance package which satisfies them, M-16s for Zaire will no
longer pose a problem for EUR. Although
it is impossible to predict now when that will be, I believe the
importance and delicacy of the Azores negotiations are sufficient to
warrant postonement of a decision on M-16s for Zaire until that time. I
recognize that there is a strong possibility that the result of this may
be to turn Mobutu to the
Chinese for AK-47s, in which case we will have to find other ways to
maintain our access to the ANZ.